Our Vision

Our vision is for New Zealand to be a world-leader in breeding ground-durable eucalypts, and to be home to a valuable sustainable hardwood industry based on eucalypt forests, by 2050.

In practical terms, the NZDFI aims to develop a valuable, complementary land-use for farmers in the warmer parts of eastern New Zealand where rainfall is low and unreliable. Our target is 100,000 hectares of durable eucalypts planted by 2030. As time progresses and our trees mature, we envisage the development of regional harvesting and processing industries, generating a range of high-value products for both domestic and overseas markets.

We are:

selecting elite trees from within our diverse genetic resource as a basis for our breeding programme

developing rapid mass propagation techniques to speed up the delivery of superior planting stock to growers

developing techniques to screen young trees for desirable wood-quality characteristics, so that selection and breeding work can yield the greatest end-use benefits